May 9, 2004
1st District candidates turn to ground attack
By Henry Cordes and Robynn Tysvern -- Omaha World Herald
While the air attacks by outside interest groups escalated Saturday, the focus of the candidates for Congress in Nebraska's 1st District turned to the all-important ground game.
"We've had a saying on the team: Every day it's three yards up the middle and a cloud of dust," Jeff Fortenberry, a former Lincoln city councilman, said of the important work done in the trenches by campaign volunteers.
The Republican was one of at least four congressional candidates handing out campaign stickers and brochures Saturday to the thousands of shoppers at Lincoln's Haymarket farmers market.
With Tuesday's primary election just around the corner, candidates from both parties and their volunteers were working in person and over the phone to sway the undecideds and make sure supporters vote.
Meanwhile Saturday, the broadcast ad war in the GOP primary intensified - and even drew in Gov. Mike Johanns.
The conservative Club for Growth aired new ads attacking Curt Bromm while another outside group, the moderate
Republican Main Street
Partnership, joined the race with ads targeting fellow GOP candidate Greg Ruehle.
The Club for Growth, a Washington-based anti-tax group that targets moderate Republicans for defeat, added radio advertising Saturday to its $ 130,000 TV blitz trying to ensure Bromm doesn't become the GOP nominee in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter.
One effect of the new ads was to draw a rebuke from Johanns for a statement that Nebraska taxpayers and the governor "couldn't trust" Bromm, the speaker of the Legislature.
Johanns said he likes all of the GOP candidates and will continue to steer clear of endorsing any of them. But he said the spot "stepped over the line."
"It's just wrong," he said of the trust reference. "Probably of any person I've met in public life, Curt Bromm is the epitome of integrity. Trust was never an issue between me and Curt, and it never will be."
The Main Street group went on the air with radio ads Saturday painting Bromm's attackers as an extremist group that favors abolition of farm subsidies and criticizing Ruehle for accepting its contributions.
Bromm, of Wahoo, said he did not authorize the Main Street ads and called for them to stop.
Ruehle, the chief executive of the Nebraska Cattlemen, said the ads were intended to hurt his standing among farmers. He said they would fail because Nebraskans know he has been a strong advocate for producers as a lobbyist on each of the past three farm bills.
Bereuter, who has endorsed fellow moderate Bromm in the race, is among the 56 members of the U.S. House listed as members of the Main Street coalition. Bereuter could not be reached Saturday on whether he was aware of the ads.
A spokeswoman for the Main Street group said the decision to run the ads was made by five other leading House moderates on the group's board who decided "Nebraskans need to know more about the organization attacking Curt Bromm."
Despite the ad furor, a light turnout is projected Tuesday in an election where the open contest to replace Bereuter is the only marquee race. That will make campaigns' grassroots organizations all the more critical, said David Kramer, state GOP chairman.
"Person-to-person contact is still the most effective way to get a vote, and it doesn't just have to be contact from the candidate," he said.
Most political scientists and other observers of the hotly contested GOP primary fight say Fortenberry appears to have mobilized the most effective organization. It showed Saturday, as he had more than a half-dozen volunteers at the farmers market handing out balloons to kids.
Starting his organization by networking through Catholic churches in Lincoln, Fortenberry broadened his base of support to social conservatives and others drawn to his message of strengthening families.
Cathy Haden of Lincoln said she was first introduced to Fortenberry by a mutual friend, and his message resonated. That's why she has volunteered to call 30 Fortenberry supporters between now and Election Day to remind them to vote.
Bromm also has assembled a solid organization, aided by his endorsement from Bereuter. As he campaigned at the farmers market, Bromm said he hoped his grassroots support would overcome some of the damage inflicted by negative ads.
He said the ads have even brought him volunteers who are offended by the intrusion of ads by an outside group. "We'll try to send them a message," Bromm told a backer.
The other leading Republican in the race, Ruehle of Garland, admits he has no ground organization to speak of.
He has tried to make up for that with television advertising, the only candidate in the race whose spending on TV ads has topped $ 100,000. The Club for Growth has helped, sending him at least $ 44,000 in contributions from its members.
Ruehle said his ads have gotten across the message that he is an economic and social conservative. But he said just ads are not enough, which is one reason he's been working hard to meet as many voters as possible.
In the Democratic primary, State Sen. Matt Connealy is thought to have the most extensive ground organization and is widely considered the party front-runner. He has benefited from endorsements by labor and teachers.
Connealy spent part of the day Saturday knocking on doors in southeast Lincoln with one of his precinct captains and legislative colleagues, Chris Beutler.
Connealy said winning Lincoln, home to 40 percent of 1st District residents, would be a "huge part" of his bid in November to take the seat Democrats haven't held for four decades.
"We'll turn up the volume on a daily basis," Connealy said.
Fellow Democratic candidate Janet Stewart also was working door-to-door in Lincoln.
While many campaigns planned to pause today for Mother's Day, she said her 29-year-old son planned to spend part of the day going door-to-door for her.
"He decided the best Mother's Day present for me is to go walk a precinct."
